Thursday, February 27, 2014

My second order from Warlord relatively recently brought me some US models and the Armies of Germany book. I picked up order dice as well and two gifts for my gaming buddy, who plays Russians. The T34 is from his wife and I gave him the command group. Unfortunately for me the tank can be equipped with a flamethrower so my future games will be scary :-)

This is what you get in the Sherman set. I've done nothing to this except put the gun barrel in the turret. Cleanup was minimal and I just scrubbed the pieces in warm water and washing up liquid to help with painting. This didn't seem to work as I will tell you more about later.

I skipped the assembly stages in my photos but it's pretty simple. The Sherman hull hatches were weird to figure out in terms of which way to stick them on and I had to trim the clasps slightly to make them fit but otherwise it was fine. For the M16 AA vehicle, the assembly diagrams on the Warlord Website give you what you need. The only thing is that you get all the bits for a regular halftrack as well so you will have some extra. I have a set of side runners, a fender, a pintle ring and four machine guns (3x30 cal, 1x 50 cal) in my bits box now.

I went a bit ghetto on the halftrack underside. The metal tracks are very heavy and I wasn't happy with the size of the glue join surfaces so I reinforced with sprue pieces to hold things together. I later covered this all over with greenstuff to solidly keep things stuck. Since it's never likely to be seen it should be fine.

Here are the scale shots in the same setting as before.

Again, Marneus looks like a monster who's ready to punch through the tank. If you take away the base and stone plinth though he would be somewhere about the middle of the turret, which isn't far off the quoted size for Space Marines.

I know I've been quiet on the blogging front recently but I've been busy with painting and modelling so now I have more things to show off, which I hope you like. Most of you who read regularly will be aware that I've been strongly taken in by Warlord Games and their WW2 game Bolt Action. I picked up some extra models for this recently and took pictures of them, but only just got off my butt to upload them.

Here was my first reinforcement batch. It includes the platoon leader halftrack with a 37mm cannon, a flamethrowing halftrack and an MG-42 medium machine gun team. What you see is exactly what you get in the box.

The machine gun team is pretty simple. I had to look at a picture of the tripod online to figure out exactly which way to attach the gun to the tripod but it looks good. I put the gunner and loader on a 40mm round base (GW Terminator size) and it was fine, with just a big of overhand. Apparently the gunner has a big butt and he does not lie. The spotter is on a separate base so I can remove him as a casualty easily. Painted pictures coming soon.

This is what you get for the flame half track. The right hand bag contains the wheels, crew and basic machine gun setup (as per a normal half track I think). The bottom bag contains the two flame projectors plus another set of wheels....why not :-)

Here are the crew figures. You get the usual Mg-42 gunner, a commander using binoculars and a creepy looking flame operator in his mask and goggles.

Here is the resin hull. Cleanup was very minor with just a few tabs to cut off, mostly on the underside. I can see only a couple of tiny flaws in the casting. One of the rifles in the rack has a tiny bit missing and there is a hairline gap in the base of the crew compartment where the wall meets the floor. I threw a bit of greenstuff on this to cover it but the tracks glue on and hide the spot from outside too.

Here are the plastic frames you get for the Hanomag half track. They went together very easily and with no issues. I'm looking forward to more plastic kits for vehicles.

The extra bits you get in the platoon leader's box (not the magnet set). There are two resin benches with fuel cans, the 37mm gun and mounting, plus two crew with separate heads. My buddy gave me the magnets and I'm trying to decide whether I magnetise everything or just glue it in and go with it as is. Not sure yet.#

Scale shots time

Here are the vehicles scaled against other models. As you can see, Marneus Calgar is massive but the WW2 figures are much closer in size. On the tabletop it's nice.

Here you can see them with a Warlord Games British Commando and a Dark Eldar warrior.

Here's a final shot comparing them to an Eldar Vyper jetbike. GW scale is a lot more bulky than these.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Having kicked my painting speed up quite a bit in the last few weeks and months, mostly due to the fun of Bolt Action, I decided it was high time to bring everything out of storage to check out what I have. I've been working on streamlining my collection and I'm even thinking of dropping a few more bits but for now I took over the dining room table and arranged EVERYTHING :-D

Here it is in full glory. To annotate the general picture you have (L-R)

Here are my Dreadfleet ships all ready to take to the table. It's a quirky but fun game that I recommend if you have a chance. Once painted up you can have a real blast trying to sink the enemy in a crazy, fantasy pirate world.

Here is the 2012 Christmas/Engagement gift that I sculpted and painted for my wife. It took a lot of work and time, but I'm happy with the results. Just a few more tweaks to the paint scheme (highlights mostly) since I was working with a yellow lamp that made it look warmer than it does in natural light, and I'll be ready to put it on display in one of our cabinets.

Some of my marine bits. Asmodai needs painting and Marneus Calgaer (left) isn't sure who to hang out with but my favourite here is the terminator in the bottom left which was painted by my wife. Her first miniature and it turned out really nicely. When I think about my first models....wow, what a difference. I need to go over the base with more green stuff to cover up my test patch and she plans to finish the heavy flamer arm then it's done.

Here are the Deathwing in full force. They are a combination of parts from all of the different ranges. I used Terminators, Assault Terminators, Deathwing bits, Space Wolf Terminators and Grey Knight Terminators to make the army. My Belial conversion is just visible in the bottom left and Lysander has been repainted to join the battle and bring the hammer down. Sadly they are a bit too assault focused for 6th Edition and my waning 40k interest means they haven't hit the table in a while.

The Dark Eldar Kabal with their pirate Eldar allies. These models were fun to paint after so much bone colour on the Deathwing but the real spark for them came when my wife discovered the transfer sheets and made them all look fantastic. I love seeing them together and hopefully I can get back into 40k a bit more soon to enjoy them on the tabletop again.

The Vypers got brightlances just because I think they look really cool. I haven't played them on the table yet but we'll see how they do. I love my scourge models (in game too) but they are really annoying to transport. So beautiful but fragile, which I suppose makes them the perfect Dark Eldar unit.

Here is my one scenery piece (I will probably paint it and leave it in the FLGS) and my not-quite-finished Dark Eldar stuff. The wracks and haemonculus in the lower left are about 50% done but I don't have the motivation to work on them at the moment. The models on the right are waiting for Wayland to (finally) deliver some greenstuff and primer. I might sell/donate the second set of grotesques as I'm not sure I fancy painting up another three of them. We'll see.

Sorry for the blurry camera shot. This is my Bolt Action American force at the moment. From the front we have two lieutenants with adjutants (left), a bazooka and sniper team (right), then six squads of infantry built around BARs. At the back are my new additions of a Sherman tank the M-16 AA vehicle with quad .50 caliber heavy machine guns. More photos of those in another post soon.

The Germans are of a similar size to the Americans but their squads are based around the light machine guns (MG-34s and MG-42s). In the foreground is Otto Skorzeny, the free model when you buy the German army book from Warlord Games, and at the back are my half tracks. On the right is the plastic/metal light anti tank one and the left is a resin/metal flame half track, which is suitably brutal in game.

Here is my small British commando force. These elite troops need some backup and once I've broken the back of my remaining painting (including these chaps) then something will be on the cards for the Brits.

Well that's it from my side as far as models go. In my time I've owned many more than these including Fantasy Dwarves, old Epic models, Tau, Space Marines and Orks, not to mention the non GW games. I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the models and if you have time then I strongly suggest you take the opportunity for a photo op of your models. It's a lot of fun and reminds you of all your hard work building, converting and painting.

About Me

I'm an Englishman who discovered in his late teens that there was a whole world beyond where he grew up and decided to explore some of it. Along the way, I've had the pleasure to meet wonderful people, explore new cultures and experience the merits of many different countries.
I'm an English language teacher fascinated by languages and meeting different people. I harbour a great affection for dogs, writing children's stories and science among other things.